


The World Was On Fire

by Gelsey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gelsey/pseuds/Gelsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I burned once with the need for her.  Now, I burn to get her out of my life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Was On Fire

I woke up, and the world was on fire. I gripped my arm, at the Mark that burned like blue-white flames.

Inside the roaring of fire, I could hear a scream. While I’m certain sound slipped my lips, it wasn’t mine. It rose with feminine desperation amid the crackling pain that became my world, and the red flames became a billow red hair surrounding once-brilliant green eyes.

Even when the Mark abruptly stopped hurting, the world around me continued to burn with ghostly flames, echoes of the Dark Lord’s power.

I knew without knowing that Lily Evans Potter was dead. 

My lips curved in a vindictive smile. Finally. No matter how much the swine conspired, Potter could not hide her forever.

If I, Severus Snape, could not have her, neither would he.

***

I woke up, and the world was on fire. I gripped my arm, at the Mark that burned like that potion Longbottom had melted half the classroom a fortnight ago.

It had been so long that despite its recent darkening, the Mark’s pain still surprised me.

But I donned my polished mask and found my way to the graveyard where the Dark Lord rose from the ashes like Dumbledore’s damnable phoenix. I burned again to rise with him.

Tied to a headstone, Potter glared with her eyes.

Just, I remembered amid the crackling, like she had the last time we’d spoken.

_Snivellus._

I smiled sharply. “Mudblood,” I whispered again, feeling as if I released the burden of her ashes into the graveyard wind. 

But by a miracle of wands, the boy escaped—and the fires of my soul were banked to embers in disappointment.

An ember was all that was needed.

***

I woke up, and the world was on fire. The flames twinkled blue and silver in my eyes as moonlight reflected off Albus Dumbledore’s glasses as he fell from the tower.

There is a crack, somewhere in my middle where I’m told my heart resides. Or my soul. It’s the place that told me that I should be sorry for this. Even though Dumbledore asked it, I should be sorry.

But there was only cold satisfaction, that the manipulative old liar was gone, and burning satisfaction, that the Lord who had given me what I had wished for long ago would be pleased.

Besides, to cast Avada Kedavra, you had to mean it. There is no sorry if you mean it.

But now I needed to flee, before my coworkers found me. Flee, to keep Draco safe, as I had sworn to Narcissa. I ran through the halls, through the milling students bleating like the sheep they were, the teachers pretending they were better than them, that they were the shepherds. I snorted, thinking of how they deluded themselves, for they were just as much sheep as the children they cared for. Fodder for the war, all of them.

Though they were not helpless, I thought as I saw a Death Eater fall. We were most often the butchers—but sometimes we were the meat. We lived with that insecurity all the time, with the Dark Lord, so it was nothing. 

Around me, the castle burned with the fires of revolution. I would have laughed, if I had the breath. Burn, burn, burn.

***

I woke up, and the world was on fire. Every day I wake in this nest of lies I’d once escaped when I fled, but now I’m back at Hogwarts. The world burned within rather than without as we all waited, waited—waited for Potter to succeed, waited for him to fail. Lies, suspicions and intrigue fueled the flames we all felt.

He came, of course. Everyone knew Potter would. We all depended upon that, enemy and ally alike.

I rushed to my Lord when he called, eager to be in on this kill. Finally, I would be free of her hold on me.

When I arrived, Nagini was wrapped about the boy, who already convulsed with the beginnings of reaction to her venom. 

Now, he burned from within, destruction in his veins. I knew how it would go—I had designed the alterations to her venom myself.

He glared, and snarled, and lashed out at the Dark Lord. But it was I who knelt in front of him as he gasped. “Look at me,” I demanded softly. “Look. At. Me.”

Then green eyes met black, and went flat and dead.

***

I woke up, and the world was no longer on fire. 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Death Eater Drabs a long time ago.


End file.
